Alex Berezow’s Articles in Puget Sound Business Journal

Every four years the political circus comes to town. Unlike the actual circus, there are neither peanuts nor animals performing tricks. Instead, we get platitudes and pandering politicians who treat Seattle like a giant ATM and leave as soon as the check clears. If we’re lucky, they don’t come during rush hour.

The church that my wife and I attend has the motto “Every member a minister.” It is meant to serve as an encouragement to be loving and charitable, as well as a reminder that, whoever you are and wherever you go, you represent the Christian faith. Behave accordingly.

Seattle as a whole is not very religious, at least in the traditional sense. Instead, we have invented our own civic religion – a combination of progressivism, environmentalism, social justice and a knee-jerk opposition to anything labeled “conservative.” And we wear this religion on our sleeve for all to see, oftentimes behaving as obnoxiously as the Bible-thumpers we routinely mock. We thump the New York Times op-ed page, instead.

On Feb. 3, 1959, singers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and “The Big Bopper” died in a plane crash. That tragedy became known as The Day the Music Died. Similarly, though there was no single catastrophic event, 2018 may become known as The Year Civility Died.

La Croix, a popular and “naturally” flavored sparkling water distributed by the National Beverage Corp., has been sued for including synthetic ingredients, among them a cockroach insecticide. This is yet another example of trial lawyers using junk science in an attempt to score a jackpot verdict, and the outcome of the trial has implications for local beverage companies, such as Talking Rain and even Starbucks.

The University of Washington has just released a study that boldly declares there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. If true, this would have a profound impact on the Washington state wine industry. But is it true?

Earlier this year, my wife and I decided to decamp from Seattle and head for the suburbs. We put our small, Northgate-area condo on the market, and it sold in less than 24 hours for $30,000 over asking price. How did we do it?

Seattle City Hall obviously thinks that it has solved all of our community’s problems. How else can we explain Mayor Jenny Durkan’s decision to take a hiatus from governing to protest immigration policy at the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas?